traveling light

“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel

_________________________________________

 

if I have learned anything in my 70 trips around the sun

it is that faith is a journey and living a life of faith is a pilgrimage.

 

sometimes the journey is coerced

Adam and Eve ousted from the garden,

exiled and excluded, more refugee than pilgrim

 

but on a journey none-the-less.

 

or Moses, fleeing blood stained sand

into the Sinai

 

the journey can be intense and focused,

like the desperate search of the magi following a star

to a newborn king

 

it can be a purposeful march toward a promise,

toward a land flowing with milk and honey

 

or it can simply be a matter of answering an inner call,

as with Abram and Sarai,

who are told to go into the unknown.

 

‘just go!” God demands

I will show you the place when you get there

 

Yeah!  Right!

 

but no matter how it starts

our faith is often a pilgrimage, and

we are pilgrims.

 

stumbling along, seeking to find our way to

the place God will reveal

 

one thing is evident about this journey

 

it must be traveled light

 

Adam and Eve fled naked (perhaps_

the people of Israel packed light

 

things were left behind

 

which makes me wonder

if I am going to be a pilgrim

what do I need to leave behind?

 

one collects a lot over 70 years

things mundane, and things precious

but which is which?

and what is really necessary?

 

I don’t have that many clothes

but I do have artifacts and art from all over the world

(I have been in 72 countries)

and to me they are special

 

I have glass art!

and coins

and books

 

oh, my

do I have books.

 

I love my books!

I often re-read them

I go back to them, like precious friends

 

but which one’s do I really need?

and which ones are expendable

 

but the need to drop baggage by the side of the road

has to do with more than just things!

 

there are beliefs I really need to leave behind

and attitudes,

and expectations

and narratives

and resentments

and

and

so much more

 

so as I enter into another decade

the challenge is clear.

 

I am being called to be a pilgrim.

I am being called to go new, and perhaps unexpected ways.

 

I do not get to settle and cling.

 

but where am I going

how do I get there

and what do I need to carry and what do I need to leave behind

 

God give me the faith to start the journey

the wisdom to travel light

and the faith that know

Love is with me, each step of the way